Sunday, 31 May 2015

Summer Style

I am not a great fan of summer. I prefer to remain resolutely in my thermal vest, hoping that the weather will take a turn for the worse. But there comes that point, earlier and earlier it seems to me, when the forecasters threaten Mediterranean heat and I am obliged to excavate my summer wear from under the spare room bed.

That necessitates the annual hunt for the iron to tame cottons after months in cramped hibernation. And the iron, which has also spent months in hibernation, short circuits the kitchen while the Vicar has the roast in the oven. The only way to avoid risking the Sunday lunch is to donate the crumpliest clothes to the local cat charity. The rest I hang in place of my winter woollens where I contemplate them with misgivings.

In winter you know where you are with a pair of wellies and a swaddling of corduroy. But it's a struggle to know how to dress suitably for the essential routines of summer:

Shorn of that vest, hidden attributes are liable to sag publicly as you go about your daily business:

Even a barbecue evening can require painstaking sartorial adjustments:

And suddenly ones Sunday best has to adapt to those inevitable seasonal demands:

On frigid May mornings, by swapping your cable-knit for your 12-year-old's classmate's swimsuit, you can rise to the occasion, only to find it exposes body parts that the razor hasn't yet explored:

Experience has taught me to throw something sturdy and wipe-able over ones lacy camisole tops when wafting forth on a summer afternoon:

The trouble is that you compromise that floaty, sun-kissed style that the clothes catalogues urge on you when the temperature rises. However, the children, behind the Vicar's back, have shown me that there is a simple way to dress practically for these unpredictable conditions while retaining that summery floral look:

What a breathtakingly brilliant idea. And the local stray population will flourish on the back of it. I wish you'd suggested it before the Vicar changed the fuse in the iron and I felt obliged to finish the job with the hanging leftovers.

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About Me

As a vicar's wife I bake cakes and memorise the parish ailments. As a mother I occasionally feed and occasionally counsel an 11-year-old son and an 13-year-old daughter. As a journalist I am a part-time staff feature writer on The Guardian and a freelancer. Tartan sofa rugs, herbaceous perennials and a nightly lager hold it all together.